


I Don't Know How

by amorousamygdala



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, F/F, Reaper is mentioned but I hardly think it warrants a tag, its not super shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9614372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorousamygdala/pseuds/amorousamygdala
Summary: Your name is Sombra, and you keep finding time and time again that the Widowmaker is a wonderfully fascinating creature.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A little Drabble I put together in between working on other projects. Hope you enjoy!

There's a name you used to have, one your mother gave you years ago without a single idea of what you would become. Some days you wake up and you don't even know it, don't even know her. There's just that eye, ever present and ever insistent. You're reminded of it as you stand with your hands in your pockets over a square of old dirt, expression set to neutral. 

You watch the Widowmaker scowl at a grave, one with an old name on it, stained by hundreds of rainy days and curious birds and cold winds. It's on some military plot with strict lines and blocks that all share the same shape, hundreds and thousands of names that only the stones they're carved in will ever remember. Some days, she tells you as you both contemplate the dirt, she forgets he was ever there. You want so say something; it always feels wrong when you don't say something, but now the air is still and you can see her trying to feel something– anything– about that clean military name on that clean military grave. It doesn't come, and neither do your words.

-

She tells you as you both lean on each other, bloody and beaten and just barely victorious, that you are a nuisance. You give her a slightly reddened grin and agree. She doesn't stop leaning on your shoulder, and you don't stop leaning on hers. The drop-ship lurches through air currents and the pilot radios something muffled and unimportant.

-

You know she knows about Volskaya. The people in charge don't say a thing, and neither does she. You'd been so ready to silence her, but she holds her plum colored tongue, and you, yet again, don't know what words to say.

-

You've never seen her lie before. You'd always figured they programmed her not to. But you're standing there in that council meeting, and they ask her about the Volskaya mishap. Your heart does a little dance and your face betrays nothing, and you watch with a bored expression as she reports smoothly how Volskaya gave your team the slip, and how such mistakes can be avoided on future operations.

She lies like she fights, smooth and poetic. It's like a dance, one she's barely even trying to do. She lives and breathes art, and the silver drips off her tongue as easy as her heart slowly thumps. You watch her lower her eyelids just enough, watch her tilt her head just enough, raise her eyebrow just enough. You're no art connoisseur, but every stroke of her brush paints another dimension into her words, every hair falling mathematically and perfectly into place.

You think it's absolutely gorgeous.

-

She sews as fluidly as she speaks, knitting your torn flesh back together with evenly spaced stitches that are near-textbook. You never read that one, so you wouldn't know, but it seems close enough to you.

For a moment there, she says with a contained smirk, you almost looked graceful. You laugh and ask her when you ever don't. She tilts her head and hums as she works. _I'd prefer not to count them while I'm concentrating_ , she says. Likely excuse, you reply. The banter takes away most of the needle's sting.

-

I'm not going back, she tells you.

Talon is powerful. Talon employs hundreds of people, extorts incredible influence. The infrastructure is terrible and the people up top are blind, but there's no good immediate reason to leave yet. You have data to collect and people to exploit, and Talon has such a wealth of both.

 _Cool_ , you tell her. You were getting tired of those guys anyway. _We bringing grandpa?_

She allows a sardonic smirk, and Reyes is surprisingly easy to convince.

And just like that, you're gone. The drop-ship comes for you, and when you never show up it returns to base after a half hour of waiting and radioing, and you laugh about the idiot pilot in a bar two countries over that night. She doesn't quite laugh with you, but that's fine. Her small smile is enough, the barest hint of approval is enough. This is much more fun than playing Talon grunt anyway.

That's what you tell yourself, at least.

-

She lets her hair down now. The duffel bag she tosses her equipment in is utterly graceless and mundane and not at all the Widow you picture, but you find yourself taking in every inch of this creature you've found yourself observing, watching her learn how to live again. It's novel, and even a little foolish. For not the first time in your life, you're caught off guard at how much you love watching her.

 _I don't know what to do with myself but run_ , she says.

 _That's fine_ , you reply. You've been doing it all your life. It's not so hard.

She doesn't smile, but she closes her eyes, and you both fall asleep in the reclined car seats as the highway whizzes by on autopilot. It's not comfortable, and it's not productive, and it's not poetic. But you keep finding that life is short, and sometimes you forget that it's also beautiful, even for two people without names or directions or shreds of common sense.

-

 _I don't love you_ , she says. You take her hand. It's cold, and calloused, and nowhere close to perfect.

 _I don't know how_ , she says. You press your lips to her wrist just to feel her pulse. It's slow and thready. Her voice is a bare whisper. You don't remember what time it is, but the motel is nicer than the cars you steal, and you've maybe had a few drinks on someone else's tab.

 _That's okay_ , you say. I'm not sure I do either.

-

You find yourself perched on the rooftop with her like two wandering birds, blinking up at the empty sky simply because it's there. The stars are so drowned out by the light that you can only see a bare handful twinkling against the hazy expanse. 

There's no good reason to be up here, but all your files have been sorted, and all her rifle parts have been cleaned, and now you're both under-lit by night time city lights with nothing left to do but exist. The glow dances under the contours of her face, so that every time you study the way it shapes her features it's already changing, and if that's just another excuse to not look away, you'll take it.

 _I don't know how_ , she says quietly. You watch her feel the words on her tongue, like some old wine she forgot she ever tasted. They're bitter, and maybe a little sweet, and you don't question when you started holding her hand, you only squeeze it and laugh softly.

 _That's okay_ , you say again. _Figuring things out is my job, isn't it?_ She concedes the point with a nod so slight anyone else would have missed it.

You tell her you should start charging a fee, and she tilts her head and raises a perfect brow. Her golden eyes are brighter than the stars anyway, so you stare at them instead. You lean on her, and she leans on you, and you can hear the word nuisance even though this time she doesn't say it. Its fond, and it's yours, and there's something in you that basks in a strange brand of pride. 

 _It's on the house_ , you reply after a while. She smiles at that, and you know that's all the payment you need.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Second person seemed appropriate for the feeling I was trying to get across, so I just ran with it. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!


End file.
